by David Smith
The numbers were a worry, though. Over forty major power relays were still off line and PO Kandampully had concluded at least a dozen might be completely beyond repair.
Obviously, ordering parts from Command wouldn’t get them here any quicker than complete relays, so Dave focussed on where the PO thought they might find components on Hole. Helpfully, Kandampully had also identified several non-essential systems aboard Tiger from which they could cannibalise electronic components, and most of the remainder could theoretically be manufactured from raw materials that should be available somewhere on Hole.
Unsure of how insidious the Chiefs dealings on Hole were, Dave decided to conduct negotiations in person. Hoping the Bo’s’un had managed to keep one of the shuttles flying, he headed aft to the hangar deck, taking PO Kandampully with him and briefing him on his plans along the way.
“I’m going to go straight to the colonial administrators and discuss with them what help they can give us with regard to our list. I’m not sure if we’ll have to bargain for it, but I doubt credit is of much use to them this far out. If they won’t take credits, I’ll need your advice on what we can offer as a bargaining chip. Can you think of anything we’d have that they’d really, really want?”
Kandampully didn’t need to muse on this for long. “The corporations involved in the mining operations take care of their basic needs and supply all the essentials. The miners will only really be interested in the sort of stuff that they don’t supply. Luxury items, leisure and entertainments, that sort of thing”
“So all the sort of stuff Chief Money imports then?”asked Dave.
“Pretty much sir, yes.”
Well, the Chief had a deck full of goods of dubious origin that Dave had ordered him to lose. On reflection, it seemed unlikely that a wheeler-dealer like the Chief would restrict his business to the crew when there were thousands of people living a hard life on the planet below. It seemed a real possibility that the goods he’d seen on Deck 10 were always destined for Hole anyway.
His mind was racing at the possibilities this afforded when they came to the entrance to the hangar deck and Dave stepped through.
He felt his feet slide from under him. His arms and legs flailed as he tried to keep his balance and he just had time to realise he was stood on a sheet of ice before a very large man in an ice-hockey uniform smashed into him and knocked him out cold.
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He came to on his back with a Petty Officer he vaguely recognised from his trips to Chief Money’s stores complex hunched over him. His back was freezing cold and he tried to get up but was stopped by an agonising pain in his left knee.
“Whoa, easy sir!” said the PO, who bizarrely seemed to be wearing a black and white striped referees outfit. “I think you’ve torn your ACL. Medics are on their way now.”
The penguin he’d befriended previously also hovered at his side, evidently hoping for more sardines.
Through gritted teeth Dave said “What the hell is going on??”
“Well, the engineers took a big lead early on, but security came back hard in the third quarter and equalised with less than two minutes on the clock. We’re in sudden death now, but security’s centre went over the top on a tackle and the engineers have the power play.”
“That” groaned Dave “is not what I meant.”
“Ah, here’s the medic now”
Everything went dark as the orderly sedated him.
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“Wuh happ’n?”
Dave woke up face down on examination bed again.
His head ached and everything was fuzzy, but when he moved he felt a stabbing pain in his knee.
He felt a stimulant being injected into his neck and a worryingly familiar voice said “You stepped onto the rink as the security team’s left-wing was trying to intercept a long pass. As a result you have concussion, severe bruising to your face and a torn left anterior cruciate ligament.”
“I have placed your knee in an auto-cast to accelerate the healing process, but this will still take approximately one week. I suggest you stay off your feet as much as possible.”
The stimulant took hold and Dave became much, much more aware of pain throughout his body. An orderly helped him sit up and he looked up into the stern, unsmiling face of Commander Mengele.
“Why does my ass hurt??” he asked.
He thought she blushed just a little, but she ignored him and carried on.
“You will be able to resume your duties, but I would recommend you do so from your quarters”
“Fine. Can you get one of your orderlies to help me?”
“No. Go away”
Climbing four decks to his quarters was a slow and agonising process and Dave was physically exhausted by the time he got there. He collapsed onto his bed and dreamt of how to exact revenge on whichever bastard had organised that bloody game.
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He awoke the next day feeling terrible.
Everything ached of hurt or both. He clambered up to the Bridge to be greeted with worried stares which he attempted to brush off:
“You should see the other guy!”
Only ASBeau was blunt enough to say “We did, and he looks fine.”
A Yeoman was waiting for him by the Captains chair. A young brunette, she was boyishly slim, bordering on skinny and was extremely pale. This accentuated fine cheeks bones and a very provocative and Gallic pout. She handed Dave a pad as he sat down, which again bore a restricted mark.
He thumbed the pad and a message appeared in the Captains distinct and very economic style.
"Here are the orders from Command. I'm too busy to worry about this, prepare a mission plan for my approval. Don't rush."
"Ps. You have the Bridge."
He sighed and handed the pad back to the Yeoman "Thank you Yeoman.....?"
"Viera, sir. Yeoman Chantelle Viera."
"Thank you, Viera." Dave looked at her and felt compelled to ask "Viera, what exactly is taking up so much of the Captain's time?"
Looking distinctly insulted, she slapped Dave hard across the face and flounced off in a flurry of Gallic hand-waving and very loud cursing in French.
Dave heard the sniggers from around the Bridge and ASBeau quietly added "Yeoman Viera isn't the best person to ask that sort of question sir, she's kind of highly-strung."
Rubbing the side of his face Dave replied "I'll try to remember that next time she's on duty."
Dave’s performance was hindered by physical discomfort and a degree of embarrassment, but he was determined not to be beaten. Taking up where he’d left off, he called engineering and asked PO Kandampully to meet him at the hangar deck. After being told all turbo-lifts were still off-line, Dave groaned and added that he’d meet the PO at the Hangar Deck in two hours time, and began the long, slow, painful descent through the ship.
He was in agony by the time he reached the Hangar, but remembered to peek around the corner as the door opened for him. With relief he noted that the sheet ice was gone, but he noticed that two hockey goals were nestling in one of the far corners of the huge open space.
The Bo’s’un saw them and approached. A stocky, swarthy man, he carried huge smile and beamed at Dave “Good morning sir, you must be the new ExO?”
“Yeah”, groaned Dave.
“You missed a great game yesterday sir, very dramatic.”
“Really. I thought I'd got far more involved than I should have”
“Er....yeah, I suppose you did. Still a great game, though. Best game this year, no doubt about it. I made a killing too. Only person to bet on a draw with Engineers to win in sudden death”
He caught sight of Dave’s obvious disapproval. “Sorry, sir, I’m a big hockey fan, couldn’t help myself.”
Dave asked “I don’t suppose I need to ask who organised the game?”
“Well, no, not really” said the Bo’s’un glancing up at a huge score-board high on the bulkhead on the opposite side of t
he deck. It was emblazoned with a huge logo above the scores and clock that read “Welcome to USS Tiger, home of the Big Money Ice Hockey League”
“Anyway, I’m Lieutenant Aristotle Theodoupoulopolis, Deck Officer. How can I help you?”
“I need to take a shuttle to the surface, Lieutenant Theophilis”
“Theodoupoulopolis, sir”
“Sorry, Theodolopolosis?”
“Theodoupoulopolis”
“Theopoloplodipus?”
The Lieutenant sighed, “Stavros, sir. Everybody calls me Stavros”
“Thanks Stavros”
Stavros led them through the Hangar and stopped at an old, wrecked mk.2 shuttle. The hull was burnt and scored on the underside and also along the plasma vents. The covers on one engine had been replaced with crudely fashioned alloy plates and there were patches on the hull in several places where the same material had been amateurishly welded into place. At the rear of the hull, the registration was near indecipherable as it had been badly scraped and dented in some kind of collision. Underneath this was the shuttle’s name, Hawking. Stavros opened the main door and Dave realised with horror that he meant to actually fly this shuttle.
“Are you sure this shuttle is safe?!?”
Stavros shrugged. “It’s the only one operational at the moment sir.”
Thirty minutes later they dropped through the thin atmosphere towards Hole.
To describe their destination as the capital was a bit of a stretch. Hole was essentially a very large mining site, and the 10,000 inhabitants were spread thinly around the globe. It was a small world orbiting a tiny white-dwarf star and the planet’s limited gravity resulted in an atmosphere too thin to be useful. Everyone on Hole lived in a hole.
The only significant structure above ground level was a transit terminal towards which Stavros was guiding the shuttle. There wasn’t much to see. A couple of strips of landing lights leading to the landing pads. Some small maintenance buildings. The main transporter building. A spindly comms array. It really was a hole.
Below the surface, Hole was a maze of tunnels. The rare minerals the miners sought occurred naturally in long thin ribbons that snaked through the rock strata, and automated excavators followed these ribbons relentlessly, leaving the small planet riddled with thousands of kilometres of empty tunnels. Rumour had it that there were over 100km of tunnel for every man, woman and child on the planet.
Being the only Federation outpost in the sector, it was home to a Federal official as well as the usual corporate sponsored civil leadership. In this case, a Colonel led a small squad of Marines, who operated the sensors and systems that monitored the border and also acted as local law enforcement and shipping control.
Dave had looked up what he could about the Colonel, but information was limited. It seemed that he’d served with distinction in numerous conflicts but hadn’t adapted to peace well.
His last posting had been a disaster. At a diplomatic function, he’d been startled by the popping of a cork from a champagne bottle and opened fire. The marines and security team had reacted to that and twenty people had been killed or wounded in the ensuing carnage.
He didn’t sound very clever, or very stable, but if anyone could offer guidance on where Dave could find what the engineers needed, it was this guy.
Stavros landed the shuttle, and a retractable corridor swung over to enable them to disembark.
“Thanks, Stavros” said Dave “I guess I owe you an apology. I was worried we wouldn’t make it, but she flew straight and true.”
“Actually sir, it was a close run thing. We had fourteen alarms on the way, three of which were serious. Ironically, the klaxon and alarm system was the first thing to fall over.” He smiled, “No biggy, I’ll try to fix a few things before the return trip”.
Dave resolved not to hurry.
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The Colonel was waiting for them at the tiny flight control office. A small view-screen was served by two small consoles, marked “Communications” and “Shipping Control” at which a pair of uniformed marines sat, leaned back and snoring loudly. Off to one side of these were a small plain desk and a very well used comfy chair in which the Colonel sat with his feet up.
“Welcome to Hole, gentlemen!” he said cordially, getting up to greet them “I’m Colonel Sanders, Federal representative for Sector 244”
Dave looked him over as they shook hands: A southern gent with a neat beard and ‘tache, white with age. Age had also softened his frame and Dave doubted he’d ever be able to squeeze into his combat armour again.
“Pleased to meet you Colonel”
“We don’t see many of you guys down here these days. What brings you down the Hole?”
“We have a maintenance issue, sir. We were wondering if you could advise where we might come by some of these materials.”
The Colonel took the pad Dave offered and scanned the list that scrolled up.
“Hmm. Hole’s not exactly a centre of engineering excellence you know. I suppose the only place you’d get most of this would be from Kennickie.”
“Where’s that, sir?”
“Not where, who. Operations at Hole are financed by big Corporations. Kennickie is a gentleman who specialises in services that the Corporations can’t provide economically for themselves. He’s really just a trader, buying low and selling high, and when I use the term “gentleman” I use it in only the loosest sense”
Terrific thought Dave. Chief Moneys opposite number and almost certainly in contact with him already. There wasn’t any other option though.
“Do you think he’d meet with us to discuss our requirements?”
“Oh yes, of course he will. I just hope you guys have got deep, deep pockets” the Colonel chuckled.
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Thirty minutes later they were stood in a tiny smelly office that was hewn out of solid rock. The furniture was cheap and nasty and like Chief Moneys stores, there was all manner of junk crammed into the corners of the office. In front of them a short, tubby, balding man sat at a cheap desk on his cheap plastic chair gazing thoughtfully at Kandampully’s list through reading glasses with thick semi-circular lenses.
The office was cold and unwelcoming, but the little man seemed to be sweating a lot, and his face had the ruddy, pitted complexion of a person with serious health problems and personal grooming issues.
“Yeah, we can get all this stuff. Maybe not in the numbers you’ve asked for though. What have you guys been doing up there?” asked Kennickie, running his hand through his thinning, greasy hair.
Dave said nothing.
“Ok, let’s cut to the chase” he said, peering over the top of his glasses “What’s in it for me?”
“Starfleet will compensate you for any material you supply, the costs to extract these items, the costs associated with their subsequent replacement and a reasonable percentage for your time and effort.”
Kennickie sat back and smiled again “I’m a businessman, not an accountant. I’ll ask you the question again. What’s in it for me?”
Dave hated him already.
“What’s your price?”
Kennickie stroked his chin thoughtfully and a distinctly insincere smile sprouted on his face.
“Well, I suppose I’d be doing us all a favour by helping you out. We’re all on the same side after all. I’ll tell you what: we’re short of aspirin.”
“Sorry??”
“Aspirin. The old traditional pain killer? None of that new-fangled stuff, we’re traditionalists out here on the frontier”
“Why don’t you just replicate the stuff?”
“Well, it’s just not the same when you do that, is it?”
Dave and PO Kandampully looked at each other, quizzically.
“Actually, yes it is. Right down to the subatomic level.”
Kennickie’s smile slipped.
“I can tell the difference” he said abruptly. “You get me aspirin, and I give you the materials on
this list, weight for weight.”
Dave turned to leave.
“Oh……. and Hollins,”
Dave stopped and looked back.
“No paperwork. No records. This is a gentleman’s agreement.”
I.e. completely illegal, thought Dave.
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The trip back to Tiger was more fraught than the trip down. Good to his word, Stavros had fixed several of the shuttle’s faults including, unfortunately, the klaxon and alarm system.
The trip back was punctuated with wailing alarms.
“Danger, port impulse engine exceeding safe temperature limits”
“Danger, environmental plant over-loaded”
“Danger, structural components at 95% of safe limits”
Each time Stavros would press a few buttons, and either deal with the problem or (more likely, Dave suspected) turn off the alarm and ignore it.
He’d never been so glad to reach a ship before and was almost happy to begin the long, slow, painful climb to his quarters.
The replicators were still off line, so Dave couldn’t create the aspirin even if had wanted to. Instead Dave compiled a query which showed that there were surprising amounts of aspirin on the ship. There were about 3 kilos in the store in sick-bay, and every medi-kit on the ship held a few grams of the stuff. Some people have even listed aspirin amongst their personal inventory when coming to the ship for the first time. All told, it amounted to just over ten kilos. Dave contacted Chief Butler and asked him to organise a team of Yeoman to go around the ship collecting the stuff quietly, but that was never going to happen in the sick-bay.
His panel beeped and Dave answered the call from Katrin Mengele.
“Why do you want my entire stock of aspirin?” she demanded.
Dave explained the situation, and she asked the same question he had:
“Why don’t they just replicate it??”
Dave started to answer, but realised that he didn’t know why anymore than she did. It had been a long day, and he was too tired to argue.
“Because Kennickie can tell the difference. Hollins out”
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He looked over the stockpile with Kandampully. It wasn’t enough.